Texas Tech football: Red Raider fans need to know about these Mountaineers

Backup QB Nicco Marchiol is expected to get his first career start this week against Texas Tech

While the biggest talking point among Texas Tech fans this year has been whether or not backup QB Behren Morton should replace Tyler Shough as QB1, a backup QB will be making his first start of the year on Saturday; it just won’t be the one many Red Raider fans would like to see.  Instead, it will be WVU backup Nicco Marchiol.

With starter Garrett Green having suffered a foot/ankle injury last week against Pitt, Marchiol is expected to be the guy Brown turns to against the Red Raiders.  That’s not necessarily a good thing though.

That’s because Marchiol might have a higher ceiling than Green.  A redshirt freshman from Arizona, he was fairly well-regarded as a high school prospect.

In the class of 2022, the 6-foot-1 224-pounder was rated the No. 19 QB in the country and the No. 4 player in Arizona.  He held offers from Florida State, Arizona State, Michigan State, Arkansas, Florida, Colorado, LSU, Michigan, Nebraska, TCU, and other programs.

Thus far, he’s attempted only 36 passes in his career, completing 17 for 196 yards and two TDs.  However, even though Marchiol is rather inexperienced, he might be better than Green.

Just a 55.5% passer this year, Green has only 402 yards passing through three games this year.  However, he is pretty good as a bus driver as evidenced by the four TD passes and no INTs on his ledger this season.

Regardless of who plays QB for WVU this weekend, it will be imperative that the defense makes the game about the Mountaineer QBs.  Tech has to put pressure on the QBs not only in the traditional sense of a pass rush but by stopping the run thus making WVU do what Brown doesn’t want to do and ask his QBs to win the game through the air.

So far, no Mountaineer receiver has more than eight receptions on the year.  Thus, it’s hard to envision Brown’s team winning if the passing game is what has to carry the day.  So look to see if Tech can jump out to an early multi-score lead as it has in each of the past four games in this series and make WVU rely on a suspect passing game to try to keep pace.